


The Elegant Table

by Dryad



Category: Rome (TV 2005)
Genre: Gen, Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-19 22:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13133514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dryad/pseuds/Dryad
Summary: Let them come, just let the tribes come.





	The Elegant Table

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anndy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anndy/gifts).



_"Hey!"_

_Raimunt dashed out of the culina, losing a roll when he slipped in the mud going around the corner. He hit the ground hard, and might have even gotten away if he hadn't been dazed by the force of his fall. He curled up, arms over his head, sucking in a breath at the kick to his hip, squirming to get away._

_"Bairk, stop it, Master will hear!"_

_"He's a little fucker, Wiebke! You oughta run him off, send him to the fields! Send him to to the river, they'll take care of him over there!"_

_From where he lay, Raimunt peeked between his elbow and his forearm to see what Bairk was going to do next. A bald, short, and fat fellow, Bairk was nonetheless taller than Raimunt's aunt, who looked down at Raimunt with no little disgust._

_She threw one hand in the air, put the other on her hip. "Well?"_

_"I'm hungry!" he whined, on the verge of tears._

_"Then work for it, like everyone else," snapped Bairk, rushing forward a step as if to kick Raimunt again, and laughing when he scrambled to get to his feet, slipping and falling flat on his face instead._

_Wiebke brayed a laugh, too, and Raimunt had never hated her more._

_Before long the two of them were howling, clutching one another and pointing at Raimunt as he keep slipping in the mud. He finally managed to get to his feet and limp away._

_He knew he was lucky the Master wasn't at the domus, would be gone for the next two days as well. Crassus would come back fatter and happier, if possible, until he heard news of what Raimunt had done. But maybe Wiebke would forget, or Bairk would would get kicked by one of his horses. Miracles happened sometimes._

_Still hungry, Raimunt headed down to the river, pulling a thread from the torn hem of his tunic. Perphaps he would get lucky and catch a fish._

"Anyway, that's what it was like," said Pullo, leaning against the back wall and looking out to where the field met the forest. It was dark over there, with threats yet uncontained. Ah well, they'd be out there soon enough. He took a long pull of beer, shook his head in appreciation of the flavor. "Freezing in winter, cool in summer. They used to have games there, not like here in Rome, obviously."

"Not enough barbarians," said Vorenus, stabbing an olive with his knife and swirling it in the tiny bowl of oil.

"Who are you calling a barbarian?" answered Pullo, aiming for amused and aware he came across as offended instead. He tried again, although he didn't know why. "Don't you know Rome is where all the barbarians come from?"

Vorenus gave him a sidelong glance, his lips pursed, and Pullo just about managed not to roll his eyes. He liked Lucius Vorenus, he did. But the man had a stick up his ass half a stadius long. 

"And from that you decided to join the Centurions?"

Pullo opened his mouth to answer, then hesitated.

_He liked eating fish, not so much with the catching of it. Slippery bastards, the lot of them, and sometimes the scales went slimy when you pulled them out of the river. And cleaning the guts! Then there was the taste - without a good sauce, eh. But he was hungry, and a terrible thief, because someone always caught him, even after the fact, someone always knew._

_Taking the short route by cutting through the nicer neighborhoods had its drawbacks. Namely, the way Citizens looked at him, as if he were lower than a piece of dirt on their shoe. Admittedly, they probably weren't far off. He was the child of a slave and some unknown man, though he had his suspicions. Wiebke often joked that he was the spitting image of Bairk, but Fransz and Line just shook their heads and said it wasn't possible, Raimunt was too old and Bairk had only been around seven summers, not ten. Raimunt didn't fancy it anyway. He hated Bairk only a little less than Wiebke, and was honestly grateful Bairk didn't claim him. Raimunt didn't know what he was going to do if he grew up, but being beholden to Bairk was not part of his plans._

_He was thinking hard about ways to get Bairk back when he walked directly into someone. Startled, he took a step back, and when he saw who it was, he took another._

_"Well well, boy -"_

_"Sir," Raimunt sullenly said, because Ebbo wasn't any better than Bairk. Besides, he saw too much of the both of them. Wiebke wasn't choosy with her affections._

_"Run into me and that's the apology I get? By Hades, who do you think you are?"_

_From the corners of his eyes, Raimunt saw people stopping to see what was going to happen next._

_"Look what you've done! Put your filthy hands on my tunic and muddied it up!"_

_"Sorry, sir."_

_When Ebbo's feet turned one way and the other, Raimunt knew he was in for it. He hung his head even lower, hoping for sympathy he knew wasn't coming._

"What about you?" asked Pullo. "What made you join up?"

Vorenus popped a walnut into his mouth, shrugged. He looked tired. Pullo could relate. They had both succumbed to the nasty bug going around, no doubt brought from one of the bastards just back from Hibernia. Pullo had a tougher stomach than Vorenus, apparently, because he had only been down for the day, while Vorenus had shat his brains out for three days. Pullo felt fine, he'd even had a woman this very morning. Vorenus, though...he should go home and see the wife, let her ride him until she was exhausted, get a brat on her.

"I wasn't necessary," said Vorenus, leaning forward with both elbows on the table. 'I'm the youngest of eight, five boys and three girls."

Eyebrows raised, Pullo nodded. He hadn't really expected an answer from Vorenus, who was ordinarily tight-lipped about his past. And Pullo certainly wouldn't have thought Vorenus was the youngest of the lot."Your family did well, then."

"Well enough."

Well enough to educate him, thought Pullo. He contemplated being sour about it, then decided it didn't matter. Some people had all the luck, others didn't. 

"I didn't fancy being an accountant, or an adjudicator, nor a slave master nor a horseman, though my mother's people are from Mutini."

"And then one day you saw a legion marching by…"

Vorenus snorted, shaking his head. "Laugh if you want, but it's true. I was fifteen and Niobe was fourteen and Vorena was coming. I needed work."

"I hear that," Pullo took an olive for himself, chewed on it thoughtfully. "I don't know what would have happened to me if a Centurion hadn't seen me."

"Oh?"

Eh, fuck it. It was years ago, didn't have the power to shame him any more. "I was in the care of my aunt after my mother died. I don't remember her," he added at Vorenus's questioning eyebrow. Gods, the man had strange ideas about parenthood. Just because a child had no parents to light an oil lamp for, that didn't mean they lacked love or attention. He shifted on the stool uneasily, had another swig of beer.

"You're stalling."

Pullo held up his hand. "No, no, just trying to say it right. When I was little I ran into one of the men my aunt used to fuck - "

Vorenus winced.

"It's only the truth!" Pullo protested. As if he was supposed to have some sort of warm feeling towards Wiebke, she hadn't even keep him fed, or even clothed! He blew out a noisy breath and ate another olive. They were damned fine, worth every coin they paid for them. Supposedly they came all the way from Valentia. "Anyway, the man got an audience going, because it was a good neighborhood I used to cut through on the way to the Rijn to go fishing."

"You hate fishing!"

"But I like fish."

Vorenus conceded the point with a little head bob.

"I was a skinny thing back then, not the strapping picture of manliness you see before you now - "

At least Vorenus had the grace to turn his head away, but Pullo knew exactly what expression was on his face: a raised, skeptical eyebrow, a look of utter disbelief. " - and I used to get beat up a lot. So Ebbo is shouting at me, yelling at me, and I don't know why, but it attracted a pair of Centurions going about their business. The shorter one looks at Ebbo, looks at me, looks back at Ebbo - " he stopped, shook his head in admiration.

_"Oi, shut it!" said the soldier. He wasn't from Germania, for he wore black woolen braccae and a white wool tunic, heavy leather caligae, and it wasn't even winter. A pugio was strapped to his hip, a shield slung across his shoulder, a leather bag under it. "Leave the kid alone."_

_The other soldier sighed heavily, yet Raimunt noticed he watched the crowd instead of Ebbo._

_Ebbo drew himself up tall, staring at the soldier in front of him as if he smelled something rotten. "Just what the fuck is it any of your bus- "_

_Blood arced through the air as the soldier casually backhanded Ebbo onto the ground. Raimunt gawked open-mouthed at Ebbo, who lay there moaning._

_"Marcus, come on."_

_Marcus snorted, then looked at Raimunt._

"And then he winked at me. Winked!" finished Pullo, still amazed that someone had stepped up for him. The first one ever.

Vorenus nodded, lifted his own tall mug of beer. "To soldiers -"

"To soldiers!" cried Pullo loudly, hoping the sound reverberated across the field. Let them come, just let the tribes come. He and Lucius Vorenus would should all comers just how capable was a Roman soldier.

 

 

 

“Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice: the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance they called civilisation, when it was but a part of their servitude.”  
― Tacitus, The Agricola and The Germania

**Author's Note:**

> I <3 Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo, and it was fun writing for them.


End file.
